Glover Art Prize for best landscape goes to painting of homelessness by artist Jo Chew

The worsening housing crisis is the inspiration powering this year’s successful piece in the John Glover Artwork Prize, according to artist Jo Chew.

“My piece ‘Tender’ was a operate that I had wished to make for a while,” the College of Tasmania arts PhD prospect claimed.

“I just finished my PhD not extensive ago and this is the initial piece I’ve built considering that ending that study.

“I required to handle the problem of homelessness in a direct way, so that is this get the job done.”

The Glover Art Prize is an annual showcase of Tasmanian landscapes, with entries from all around the entire world, and is held in Evandale, Tasmania.

It was awarded to Chew on Friday night.

The $75,000 prize is awarded to the very best modern landscape portray, together with a bronze maquette of colonial artist John Glover, who was encouraged by the Evandale space in his renowned paintings.

Chew moved to Tasmania a couple many years back when the housing crisis was particularly seen, with households pressured to camp for weeks in the Hobart Showground.

The piece depicts kunanyi/Mt Wellington in the background, the 3-legged staffy Sheila and a child’s toy crab together with the family’s caravan and tent in the centre.

“It really is fairly recognisable for a lot of persons, the graphic of homelessness … housing, you can find just not plenty of and it is really unaffordable,” Chew reported.

“Not everybody can have the kind of income to pay back hire, enable alone to invest in a household, so I feel it is really certainly obtained worse.”

Not the 1st out-of-the-box landscape winner

Even with originally remaining a prize for traditional landscape artwork, the spectrum of performs that earn has become much more fluid in new decades.

“It really is really challenging, there was so significantly diversity in what was submitted this yr,” judge Lucienne Rickard said.

“We experienced these a broad range we have a weaving upcoming to a collage, upcoming to regular paintings and that can make our work truly hard, in the best achievable way.”

In 2020, Glover Art Prize winner Robert O’Connor divided viewpoints with his meaty landscape, that includes a huge chunk of meat “someplace near Oatlands”.

And despite this year’s winner also building a social stance, Ms Rickard reported it was an uncomplicated selection for the judges.

“It’s a landscape in a truly exciting way, there are layers to this get the job done and it is apparent the painter is quite intelligent so there’s a reference to John Glover and the way that he painted, and you will find also incredibly present-day components like the tent.

“And we can also see aspects of the Tasmanian landscape there with kunanyi/Mt Wellington so it really is a landscape on quite a few amounts.”

Social commentary not new for Glover

Tasmanian art critic Andrew Harper said social commentary had always been there in the Glover.

“If individuals are grumpy and indicating, ‘Oh, you have to do social commentary to win’, I can’t assist but wonder that is not bitter grapes on their portion that they failed to get picked,” he claimed.